Issued by Department of Health
17 November 2006
The Department of Health would like to make a correction on the information relating to the number of people on antiretroviral treatment (ART) released earlier this week.
The accumulative number of both children and adult patients put on antiretroviral therapy by September 2006 was 213 828. In the process of releasing the information, the number of children on ART (21 550) was erroneously added to this figure increasing the total accumulative number of patients on ART to 235 378.
The number of patients initiated on ART have therefore increased by 35 193 in a three months period from 178 635 at the end of June 2006 to 213 828 at the end of September.
This increase represents an average of more than 11 000 patients being put on treatment every month making the South African programme the fastest growing ART programme in the world. The growth in the uptake is largely attributed to an increase in the number of facilities providing ART from 251 in June 2006 to 273 in September 2006.
The Department of Health is committed to expanding access to ART in line with the goal of providing quality treatment, care and support to all qualifying HIV positive patients in an equitable manner.
Table below indicates the accumulative number of patients initiated on treatment per province at the end of September 2006.
| Province | Number of patients |
| Eastern Cape | 24 920 |
| Free State | 6 950 |
| Gauteng | 55 580 |
| KwaZulu Natal | 59 404 |
| Limpopo | 11 660 |
| Mpumalanga | 7 989 |
| Northern Cape | 21 579 |
| Northern West | 4 476 |
| Western Cape | 21 270 |
| Total | 213 828 |
Contact: Sibani Mngadi @ 0827720161